


Crumble

by tastewithouttalent



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inline with canon, M/M, Movie Spoilers, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s hardly like Reisi hasn’t been expecting this." Reisi sees something he has anticipated but is not as prepared as he thought he would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crumble

He had thought he was braced for it.

It’s hardly like Reisi hasn’t been expecting this. He’s had enough time to work through the edges of the loss, and the worst of the nightmares, and if he still wakes up tangled in sweat-drenched blankets sometimes at least he no longer does it while screaming. He can smile, now, can sometimes laugh with true amusement, the lines of his life coming back into focus even if their structure is irreparably altered. And if his life goes on so too must everyone else’s, Mikoto’s abandoned clan reforming itself to fill the vacuum left by his death.

But still. When Reisi looks up to see the lines of the Red Sword hanging in the sky -- every curve intact, every edge pristine -- something in him hisses adrenaline, jumping to an impossible conclusion that says  _him_  when he knows it cannot be. Realization comes hard on hope’s heels, crushing imagination back into the realm of reality, and Reisi seizes composure like armor, drags and holds it against his features so his eyelashes don’t shift, his mouth doesn’t twist as he gazes up at the pristine Sword above them. But the appearance of calm is all he can muster, even that fragile at best; his heart is hammering, the burn of grief unexpected by its momentary absence and the loss the greater for it. His chest aches, heart trying to beat around the piece that will always be missing now, for him, and his composure is giving way, unexpected hope shattering him like even Mikoto’s blood on his hands didn’t succeed in doing.

It is Awashima who saves him. He notes it only distantly, her clear-throated commands to steer the rest of the clan away from him for a moment, and he will be grateful, later, when he exists wholly in the present once more. But when he blinks his eyes blur into the past, his memories calling up a crooked grin under a Sword as fully formed as the one he just saw, the rumble of a laugh and the glancing contact of fingers at his wrist. His hands are trembling, shake until he can clench them into forced stillness, and there is noise, Awashima’s voice and the rumble of impact all around him, as if his illogical relief were given form to crumble into destruction around him.

He ought to move. He ought to turn, to command his followers, to step away from the cascade of danger spilling from the building overhead. But for the moment, all Reisi can do is keep his shoulders straight and his hands clenched while he shuts his eyes to the ache of tears burning tracks across his cheeks.


End file.
